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Trying to have a Civil Discussion™ at wottsupwiththat today, I knew it was only a matter of time before my climate entourage showed up, turned it into another thread about me and begged Wottsy to shut it down because “this is turning into another thread about Brad.”

So that was no surprise.

But something ‘BBD’ told me got me thinking. It reminded me of a phenomenon that’s been bugging me for a while now.

“For all his show of surface intelligence,” said Born Believer Dominic, “Brad is demonstrably incapable of understanding that the consensus arises from the evidence but is not part of it.”

Here’s the thing: I’m accused of seeming smart all the time.

Yesterday, for example, the worst insult my critics could come up with with was that I “like the sound of [my] own brilliance.“

OK, admittedly that was just BBD again (who went on to describe my brilliance as deafening, drawing further attention to his confusion between the photic and the phonic).

But other people have been telling me the same thing. For years. At Deltoid I was condemned as a “[W]underkind.” At school I was tediously scolded as a “smartass”, while my peers were praised as “dumbasses.”

Why do people keep saying how intelligent I seem—and how do I make them stop?